Hostile engagement (2 page)

She hadn't told Rupert anything of the sort, she mused as she left Donald and went into the short hall and from there into the small cloakroom. For all it was late May it was cold outside and she had slipped a jacket over her shoulders before she left Brook House. Almost everybody there must have been feeling the cold too, she thought as she saw coats, wraps and scarves covering every available surface, the half dozen or so hooks on the coat rack overburdened until it was impossible to hang anything else there. Lucy had just spotted part of her white bouclé wool jacket beneath a pile of others, when the blonde girl she had seen in the group with the man whose look she had mistaken came in.

`Just off ?' the blonde asked, seeing Lucy endeavouring to extract the white boucle without dropping the ones on top on to the floor. Not a bad do, was it?'

`Not bad,' Lucy agreed, liking the girl's open friendliness for all they hadn't got around to being introduced.

The blonde rectified that omission with the same ease she had struck up the conversation. `I'm Carol Stanfield, by the way—I came with Jud and his mother.' She took it for granted Lucy knew who Jud and his mother were.

As she was about to introduce herself, the top coat of the pile Lucy was wrestling with began to slip, taking her mind off telling the other girl her name as she grabbed at the coat before it hit the ground. So the man who had looked through her was called Jud, she thought as she replaced the coats, deciding to tug at the flash of white and hope for the best. She doubted she would ever find out his surname—she had never seen him in Priors Channing before, so he must, she concluded, be visiting someone in the district. Quite what made her ask the question she didn't know, because she just wasn't interested in where the man lived, but as the girl who had introduced herself as Carol Stanfield saw the wrap she had come in for on the top of a pile near the door, the words left Lucy's lips before she could stop them.

`You don't come from around here, do you?'

`Lord no ! I live in London—you never know, though ...' she smiled a friendly smile. `I'm staying with Jud up at the Hall,' she said, and held up crossed fingers. 'Here's hoping,' she added impishly, and not noticing Lucy was staring at the hand, fingers now uncrossed, Carol Stanfield placed the wrap over her arm and turned to go. 'See you around, I expect,' she said, and was through the door before Lucy answered her.

All Carol Stanfield's talk and what exactly it was she was hoping for passed Lucy by. She was too stunned to do little more than realise she was now in the cloakroom by herself. That was my mother's ring, she thought, stupefied, when at last her brain began to function again. Carol Stanfield had been wearing the antique ring Rupert had lost that day he had been taking it to the jewellers in Dinton.

Galvanised into action, Lucy went to hurry after the

other girl, her jacket forgotten, it was of prime importance to stop her before she left. But before Lucy could reach the door the pile of coats from which Carol Stanfield had taken her wrap slipped, and Lucy was ankle-deep in outer garments of all colours. Unable to open the door, she had to first pick up the jumbled heap of furs and fabrics. It didn't take very long and with an unspoken apology to their owners she plonked the bundled assortment on the small table all anyhow and dashed through the door.

She reached the open front door in time to see a smooth-looking Bentley pulling away with the blonde head of Carol Stanfield sitting in the back. Wild visions of sprinting to her Mini and chasing after the Bentley sprang to Lucy's mind, only to be halted by Joyce Appleby's tinny tones.

`Ah, Lucy, just off, are you? So pleased to see you—you didn't bring Rupert with you? He's a naughty boy—but tell him we'll forgive him.'

Lucy had forgotten Joyce was on the organising committee. She was just the right person to do the job, she thought, but she was more anxious to get away than to stand listening to Joyce—she knew of more than one person who had given a donation to one of Joyce's charities purely in order to be rid of her.

At last Lucy made her escape and went to retrieve her jacket and put the bundle she had tossed so unceremoniously down by the door into some sort of order. It was too much to hope that the Bentley would still be around and, her mind busy, Lucy got into her Mini and followed the route the genteel Bentley had taken down the road.

Carol Stanfield had said she was staying up at the Hall with Jud. The only Hall Lucy knew of in the district' was Rockford Hall. It had been up for sale for ages, as had the estate and farms that went with it. No one knew the exact asking price, but common sense said it must go into seven figures. The man Carol had called Jud must be rolling if he had bought it, Lucy considered, and surely anyone con-

nected with him wouldn't have come by her ring by any underhand means.

Undecided whether to make straight for the Hall or go home with the hope that Rupert would be there—he had gone a bit wild just lately, understandable really, she excused him with sisterly blindness—Rupert would know what best to do. Something, she didn't know what, stopped her from turning the Mini on to the road that would take her to the Hall when normally there would have been no decision to make. At any other time there would have been no arguments. She would have sailed straight up to the door of Rockford Hall and demanded to see the wearer of her ring.

She didn't want to see the owner of the Hall, though. A feeling of unease spread through her at the very thought of seeing him and stating baldly that his guest was wearing her most treasured possession. She had a feeling he wouldn't like it—not that she was frightened of him, he might well be very understanding about it, though she wasn't very convinced about that.

Trying hard to remember on which hand the girl had worn the ring, Lucy turned the Mini in the direction of her home, Brook House. Had Carol Stanfield been wearing the ring on her engagement finger? Perhaps she was this Jud person's fiancée-that made it even blacker, for if Carol was engaged to him, and good luck to her if she was, she would need all the luck she could get if first impressions were anything to go by—then wasn't it likely that if the girl had grown attached to the ring she would be most unlikely to want to give it up? Try as she might Lucy could not remember on which hand or even which finger the girl had worn her mother's ring. All she knew was that it was the same ring and she wanted it back at all costs. What was more, she was going to have it back—regardless of whatever Jud whoever he was had to say.

Parking her car in the drive of Brook House she saw

Rupert's car was parked beside the big oak front door of the many-windowed Georgian house, and raced inside to find her brother, anxious to tell him her news.

She met Rupert coming along the
hall obviously on his way out. H
ow did the bunfight go?' he paused to ask.

`I saw my ring,' Lucy came back, too pent up to answer his question, and followed on in a rush, unable to see her brother's expression in the dim light of the hall. 'There was this girl there and she was wearing it, Rupe—she was wearing my ring! She ...'

`Your ring?' Rupert interrupted her slowly when she would have galloped on. 'You say you saw a girl wearing your ring?' he questioned, then to her utter amazement discounted what she had just told him. 'You must have made a mistake.'

`I didn't,' Lucy said quickly, not comprehending that Rupert didn't believe her, and went on to tell him what had happened.

`It was probably very similar—but I doubt it was the one I lost,' her brother said when he had heard her out. She wished he would come into the sitting room with her where they could discuss it in relative comfort, but Rupert hadn't moved towards the sitting room but seemed to be edging nearer to the front door if. anything.

`It was the same ring,' Lucy told him flatly. 'I'd know it anywhere.'

Rupert peered at his watch. 'Look, Lucy, I know you're in a lather, but I'm supposed to be seeing Archie Proctor in ten minutes—leave it until I come home, we'll talk about it then.'

Mention of Archie Proctor successfully took her mind off the ring for a moment. Archie Proctor was one of the few friends of her brother's whom she didn't like; he was too fond of the good life without thought for the consequences for her peace of mind—there was that girl over at Bishops Waking who claimed openly that the father of her daughter

was Archie Proctor, for all he denied it.

`What are you seeing him for?' She knew she shouldn't question Rupert like this, but she was never happy when he was out with Archie Proctor. Rupert had only taken up with him since their parents had died, and she fervently hoped he would drop him as quickly.

`I am three years older than you, remember,' Rupert came back, not liking to have his movements questioned. 'At twenty-five I think I'm entitled to make friends without having to ask your permission.'

She had upset him. She didn't need to hear the front door slam behind him to know he had taken exception to her question. Disconsolately she pushed her way into the sitting room and stared with unseeing eyes out of the window. The gardens were a picture this time of the year, but it could have been a dung heap out there for all the beauty she saw.

There was no knowing what time Rupert would be back. More than likely he and Archie would go into the nearby town of Dinton and live it up till the small hours. Once or twice lately Rupert had come back the worse for drink, though Lucy didn't know where he was getting the money from; his allowance wasn't due for some weeks yet, but that wasn't her main concern just then. All she hoped was when he came home it would be in one piece, having caused no harm to himself or anybody else.

Telling herself that worrying over Rupert wouldn't bring him home any sooner or any more sober than he would be if she didn't worry about him, Lucy went to her room and changed her jump suit for jeans and a sweater, while niggling worries of Rupert kept intruding. She had no idea what time he would be home and she so wanted to have her ring in her possession tonight. He had said they would discuss it when he came home, but as far as she could see there was nothing to discuss, even supposing Rupert was sober enough to discuss anything very sensibly.

He had been so loving and caring when their parents had been alive, immediately afterwards too, she recalled, and although grieving their parents' loss himself, had gone out of his way to help her with her pain. She brushed a tear from her eyes as she recalled the day he had seen her sitting holding her mother's ring—she had no idea of its worth, but treasured it because it had belonged to her mother; it had in fact been in the family for generations. Rupert had taken the ring from her; there had been no need to ask if she loved it, he knew that already. `I'll take it into Dinton tomorrow and have it cleaned up for you,' he had told her gently. 'I don't suppose Mother's had it cleaned in all the years she's had it.' That he had spoken of their mother in the present tense had gone unnoticed by both of them; at that point they were still referring to their parents as if they were still with them.

True to his word Rupert had taken the ring into Dinton. But it was not until three weeks later had he confessed he had lost it, and by that time they were acquainted with, and trying to adjust to, the news that the fortune they had expected to inherit was non-existent, were adjusting to the fact that the lands to the north, east and south of Brook House had been sold off some months before to pay for their father's gambling debts, debts they had been in total ignorance about—that they still had the house was a miracle. Seeing how bitter Rupert had become at the news that his inheritance had been gambled away from him, Lucy had bottled down her anguish over the loss of her ring, and had asked her brother quietly if he had informed the police.

`Of course I've informed them,' he had snapped, none of his earlier gentleness - in evidence then. 'What do you take me for—an idiot?'

`I'm sorry,' she had apologised, and kept the sorrow of her feeling to herself.

After that Rupert had shaken off the bitterness of his feel-

ings and had replaced it with a wildness that was so out of character she began to wonder if she had ever truly known her brother at all.

Knowing she would not be able to sit quietly waiting for her brother's return, Lucy thought briefly of ringing the police and letting them handle the investigation into how Carol Stanfield came to be wearing her ring, but after some time spent in thinking the matter over, she decided against the idea. If this Jud person had just come to live in the area it was hardly fair, knowing how quickly gossip could spread in the community, to have speculation spreading about him or his guests being the receivers of stolen property—that sort of talk would take years to live down in the close community of Priors Channing, and while she held no brief for him, in all fairness she knew she couldn't do it. No, there was only one way to handle this—she would go to the Hall herself.

Once her mind was made up Lucy found it difficult to wait until she judged lunch at the Hall would be over, then at two o'clock, she went to her room and exchanged her jeans and sweater for a lightweight trouser suit in mid-brown that went well with her dark brown hair and eyes; the whole effect was lifted by the cream silk blouse she donned beneath her jacket. She could have gone up to the Hall in her jeans, but the knowledge of what would almost certainly turn out to be a sticky interview ruled that no matter how she was feeling inside, she should arrive at the Hall looking cool, neat and confident, and she doubted that jeans and sweater would help her achieve that effect.